Tools for building your artist site
The other day I had a great email exchange with a friend and former colleague of mine, Thomas Grogan of Grogan Social Scene. Then I added a bunch of posts to the Topspin Green Room about Wordpress for artist websites.
So I thought this week’s post could cover some basic tools that you may want to get a hold of. These are nice and FREE! tools as well.
Start with Wordpress. It’s free and it does make a nice way to create a way to manage content on your site without having to go into the HTML all the time. A Wordpress powered site doesn’t need to be a blog. Check out my latest project:
http://www.subswara.com
to see what I mean. I’ll dive into some Wordpress tutorials in the future…RSS the blog to hear about it or demand it in the comments! Or request another post if tools for building websites bores the hell out of you!!
OK! So to have Wordpress, you also need a server (and a domain name of course). Bluehost, Mediatemple and GoDaddy offer various hosting, domain registering packages as well as “one click” wordpress install.
Once you have a website ready for wordpress, you’ll need a theme. Or you may want to build your own theme from the ground up. I recommend starting with a simple theme that uses the Grid 960 CSS framework.
Quick diversion: What is HTML and CSS?
HTML is like the inside of your house. CSS is like the dressing on the outside. Not really…but if you don’t know what these two things are that’s a good place to start.
Sites are built out of blocks — eithter divs or tables, along with smaller components like headers, paragraphs and so on. Each one can have it’s own “style.” For example, on this website – the subject line of each blog post has the same style. They are all the same font, color height etc.
It would be a waste of time to have to put in the code to define that each and every time. That’s where CSS comes in. The HTML says “This is the headline of the Blog Post” then the CSS fills in – ok make it this tall, this color this font etc.
If I want to have other places use the same type of headline, I just create a headline “class.” For example, the titles of Pages or sections can all have the same style. I’ll just use the same class and assign it in the CSS.
If this is starting to make sense…then I highly recommend using the tool I use most.
The Best FREE Tool EVER!
Type “How do I _______” into google. Where the blank is “Use CSS” or “Make a static page my home page for Wordpress” or … or….
Bring out the GIMP!
Another FREE Tool you will want for building your website is GIMP. If you already own or “own” Photoshop then you’re all set. But if not then GIMP is an open source version that will let you make GIFs and PNGs with transparent backgrounds. KEY for making nice looking logos and graphics and getting some things into Fonts that are non web readable.
I’ve just found the open source version of Illustrator as well…it’s called Inkscape. If you are on a Mac, you’ll need an extra piece of free software called X-11. This let’s you save the hassle of booting into Windows to use these apps.
One word of caution though…the version I’m on of X-11, you use the PC CTRL key where you’d normally use the Mac Apple/Command key. Like CTL + C for Copy instead of Command + C.
The other tool that you’ll want that’s free is Google Analytics. Make sure you install that and get down with all the fresh data there.
So there you go. Do some digging on CSS and Floating Divs (trust me just search how do I float a DIV) and you’ll learn fast. Then check out http://960.gs…you can then stop worrying about floating divs…just make your divs add to 12 or 16 (depending on your big container). It’s still good to know what DIVS are and how to float them though!
Wordpress How-to’s
And for Wordpress magick…the codex is pretty amazing as is. Want to just pull up a custom field to place a buy button on your site?
Check out WP Recipes.
Want to create surveys, polls or even auto respond with a link to download your free song (if you’re not running Topspin) I like this plugin: MM-Forms.
Ok ! That’s the basic tools set. Go get em. Google search how to use em and have fun! Or tune in again as I will do some screen casts or similar with some how-to’s specific to Topspin and or artist sites.
Things got busy…hence the less than organized post. Thanks for reading/ understanding!
Social Signal Gives Away the Farm…go get some!
This post is probably more for the social media marketers out there but….who isn’t a Social Media marketer these days?
Kudos to Social Signal for opening up their process to the world. As a four year “veteran” in the space, it is a big step for them to share their strategy for helping clients create and deploy social media strategies and marketing campaigns.
If you’re not new to social media marketing, their first planning doc that I’ve linked to may seem a little corporate or made for those who are pretty clueless about the space. However that’s not a bad reminder that many people are still not really familiar with the difference between a browser’s book mark and a social bookmarking site for example.
Their approach also looks to be geared towards engaging a whole department or team rather than just a few key decision makers…but kind of fun nonetheless to imagine these guys giving chocolate pieces to their clients who participate in the “jam session.”
I look forward to watching this story evolve however as they go from the overview and high level concepts into the specifics of execution (if they do indeed go there).
In the meantime, I encourage you to check it out. I’m sharing the link to a potential “competitor,” because like Social Signal, I believe that the more information there is available about Social Media, the more of a field will be created. The bigger the field, the more business there is to be done as well as the more best practices that will evolve that help us do our jobs better.
In addition, a senior colleague at Landor Associates (my first professional gig) once said that Landor would be hired and would maintain its customers with the quality of the execution of their ideas and the quality of their relationships with their clients. It was not necessarily the ideas themselves that held the key to winning and keeping a client.
My favorite source of social media inspiration has been Copyblogger. I highly recommend them as well. And of course should you decide that you want to dial your social media strategy in, buy you don’t have the time to fully DIY – I’d be happy to help.
Tracking for Dollars
The other day I was telling one of my clients how excited I get by tracking email. I was like oh man I LOOOOVE email tracking. He laughed a laugh that said, “man this guy is a total nerd.” But then he said…”I’m starting to love it too.”
You know why? Because tracking response to email is a sure fire way to make more money.
Aside from that, it’s also a way to test how creative you can be in writing your copy, placing links, figuring out what to put in the email and what to put on the page that the link goes to.
Bring on the basics
To go on the email tracking expedition, you’ll need to:
- Set up Google Analytics on your site. If you haven’t done this, do it NOW!
- Bookmark this URL or just remember to Google Search URL Tool
- Have an HTML email program – it’s part of the Topspin software but you can also use Mail Chimp, Constant Contact or Fanbridge just to name a few.
- A little extra creativity!
The basics of what we are about to do is called “split testing.” Most HTML email programs – including Topspin’s will give you information like how many people opened the email, how many people clicked on links.
When you look at your Google Analytics, you see totals for how many visitors came to your site, how many pages they viewed and if you are using Topspin and you have Ecommerce Tracking enabled in your Google Analytics, you can also see what percentage of visitors purchased something and on average how much per purchase are you making.
So far so good! So let’s say you send an email out to your fans and there is a link to yoursite.com. When you check google analytics, you’ll probably see a spike in traffic on the day of and day after your email went out. So the spike is from people who got your email and then clicked the link.
But you won’t be able to track those people as separate from people who just went to your site. To Google Analytics, a person who clicks on a link you sent in an email looks just like a person who just typed your website address and went there directly.
This is why Google also offers the ability to create what I called “tagged links.” If you create a tagged link, then Google Analytics is able to separate those people from the general traffic to your site.
This means that now, you can see more exactly how much of that traffic spike was from your email AND you can see how much revenue can be attributed to the people you emailed.
Here is how to set it up:
Tag it!
Go to this URL where Google offers a simple tool to build a tagged link – but you may want to keep these instructions open as I’m going to walk you through what is going on when you are setting up your Tagged link.
So we’re out to track people who are clicking on links we put into our email. Let’s say the email is promoting our new album.
So We are the source of the promotion, and we’re promoting our album and we’re sending out our promotion via email.
Google requires at least these three bits of information: the Source the Medium and the Campaign.
We’re the Source, Email is the medium and the Campaign is the album promotion.
So in the tool, put “us” or your band name in the field labeled “Source” put “Email” into the field for Medium and put the name of your album into the “Campaign” field.
Now generate URL. You should get something like this:
http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=albumname
where mysite.com would be your website address.
Now- let’s put it to use!
Here is where you go in Google Analtyics:
White belt: You just put the same link in every email. Like hey our new record is out you can listen here. Where the word “Here” is linked like http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=albumname
Brown Belt: If you have more than one link in your email, you give them separate tags. For example you hyper link an Image in your email in addition to the word “here.” What we’re doing is introducing another Variable — the source, medium and campaign are the same but now we want to know what happens to Image clickers vs. Text clickers.
Go to the URL tool and now generate two URLs – for the text, put the word text into the Content field. In the other put Image.
Your URL now looks like this:
http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_content=text&utm_campaign=albumname
and
http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Image&utm_campaign=albumname
In Google Analytics you can compare data from the two. More on that below….
Black Belt: Carve your email list into two or three lists. Now write different emails to each list.
Maybe one email is long, the other is short. Maybe one is all text the other is just a huge graphic. Try lots of different things. Use the content parameter to let yourself know that someone has clicked on email A versus email B. You’re tracking not just how many clicks, but you’re really looking for what people do once they get on your site.
Your long email could have every link to your site like this:
http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_content=longemail&utm_campaign=albumname
Your short email would use a link like this:
http://mysite.com/?utm_source=us&utm_medium=email&utm_content=shortemail&utm_campaign=albumname
Ninja: Take that information and DO SOMETHING with it! If email A got more clicks than email B, but the people who clicked from email A didn’t buy as much. Then you need to come up with a theory as to why that is. Once you have a hypothesis of why it is, you create an experiment. Change something about the email, or the page you send a person to when the click. Use the tracking links to discover if your hypothesis was right. Did your change increase the behavior you are looking for?
Here is the making money part: If the behavior you are after is more revenue per visitor, then that is what you are testing for.
*note* In addition to installing Google Aanlytics you also need to enable E-Commerce tracking in your Analytics account. Just below the Google Logo, you’ll see a link for “Analytics Settings.” Click that, then click “Edit” on the next screen – it will be all the way on the right, middle of the screen in the column labeled “actions.”
Once you’ve done that, you go to the Traffic area in your analytics:
Click on Traffic Sources and from the sub-menu under Traffic Sources click “Campaigns”.
Now see that you have a little drop down just above where all your campaigns are listed that lets you drill down into things like Medium, and Content:
Then you can select for Campaign, or Medium or Content and see the traffic.
Now click onto the ECommerce tab:
Be sure you’re not just looking for volume (ie number of sales). Your volume could very well depend on timing. More people will click through and be excited the day you announce your record vs. a few days later. You want to look for ratios.
OF the people who click What Percentage do this or that? The percentage shows you how efficient you are. There of course is a whole lot more to get into, but those will be other blog posts… the feedburner subscription at the top right is a good option so you don’t miss out.
If you are becoming more and more efficient then the next time you have volume you’ll be able to get more out of it. That is where the more dollars comes from.
I skipped to the bottom, can you just wrap this up in a few words?
Yes! Install Google Analytics. When you send out email messages (or any online promotion) that has links back to your site – tag the links with the URL Tool (google search URL TOOL).
Establish some kind of baseline. How responsive are people to your emails? To your other links?
Create tests to improve your baseline. Test them using the links. Iterate. Improve more. Have fun, be creative. Try stuff that seems crazy…then check your analytics to see if you are crazy like a fox, or just crazy.
Happy hunting!
Learn why email rules
In research that can be found in reputable sources such as the Marketing Profs and Marketing Sherpa sites, email has proven to be the channel that is the most effective in driving conversions. More clicks per view and furthermore more action after the click.
I have a theory of why I think this is. It’s based off of my own personal experience and so I’m not claiming any data here- but here goes:
Basically it comes down to that I feel more protective of my inbox than I do of my Facebook/Twitter / etc. I also check my email box more frequently than I check my Twitter stream. (although I do have a “Junk” email box that I sometimes use when I don’t really want to give my email).
Furthermore, I also think that the private nature of email has an influence. If I sign up to someone’s email list, it is not necessarily public knowledge. It’s between me, and what I subscribed to.
Twitter, Facebook and other social media are built to publicize / update the world at large that I’m “following” or participating.
I believe this creates a different or additional motive for tweeting, following, or becoming a fan of something on facebook. In other words, my motive to become a “fan” of something on facebook is more to show the public my affiliation to something cultural rather than my desire to use facebook as a channel to receive information.
Last, I think I’m more habituated to actually reading my emails – so the message has a better chance to seep in, and therefore offers the marketer a better chance to get my click. Emails can also carry a better mix of images and text than a facebook update or tweet can carry. Also, email has the power of the subject to hook my attention, then the content of the email to win me over to clicking.
So to recap:
1. since email is personal and private it takes more of a reason to make me want to subscribe to something via email
2. email can be more rich in terms of how it can deliver information and it’s more likely to be read vs. missed like a tweet or other communication channel